When policy makers disparage Kissinger in private, they tend to do so in a manner that reveals how much they measure themselves against him. The former secretary of state turns 90 this month. To mark his legacy, we need to begin in the 19th century. Read Here – The Atlantic
If very high interest rates are bad for Europe, then very low ones must be good, right? Seems logical. Yet the big drop in yields on government bonds of Italy, Spain, Ireland, and Portugal isn’t entirely positive, especially for the European Central Bank. Read Here – Businessweek
There are many shortcomings in the preemption argument. First, it reflects a failure to recognize the realities and continuities in DPRK diplomacy, where threats, insults, and relatively minor shows of force are simply the first step in the negotiation process. The motives that underlay this strategic approach are still debated, but the fact is that […]
An iron law of effective diplomacy is that if you make public demands, your credibility depends on sticking to them. European Union foreign ministers saw fit to ignore that lesson yesterday when they formally lifted all sanctions on Burma except an arms embargo. Last year, the same ministers said this step would only be taken […]
Once, when asked for his opinion of Charles de Gaulle, Winston Churchill mused: “If I regard de Gaulle as a great man? He is selfish, he is arrogant, he believes he is the center of the world. He . . . You are quite right. He is a great man.” Churchill knew whereof he spoke: During […]
George W. Bush’s low standing among academics reflects, in part, the rise of partisan scholarship: the use of history as ideology and as a political weapon, which means the corruption of history as history. Bush may not have been a great president; he may even be considered an average or below-average president, but he and […]
Is China, under its new president, Xi Jinping, undertaking its own diplomatic pivot, parallel to the United States’ “pivot to Asia”? Xi’s first significant international initiatives – making Russia his first official visit abroad, followed immediately by his attendance at the BRICS summit in South Africa – suggest that China may be seeking to place […]
The man at the helm in North Korea today is an accident of history, surrounded by vestigial assertions of narcissistic genius that are de rigueur for North Korea’s depiction of its own leaders. More than any time since the young Kim Il-song was surrounded by Soviet generals in the 1940s, the North Korean leader today […]
Sino-US economic and trade relations are the most powerful proof of the win-win and interdependent nature of bilateral relations. But the good momentum that has been achieved has also encountered some obstacles because some people in the US always want to politicize the relationship and Washington has been maintaining restrictions on high-tech exports to China. […]
Last month’s coup d’état in the Central African Republic (CAR), in which the northern-based group Séléka fought its way into the capital Bangui and overthrew President François Bozizé, is yet another destabilising development in a country which has had a troubled and violent modern history. Read Here – The Hindu
